ABSTRACT
Suicides can have rather bizarre aspects; this chapter offers examples of some behaviour that investigators might encounter. In addition, it examines the phenomenon of suicidal people who infect or affect others, sometimes by alluring doctrines and sometimes by force. The chapter includes studies of suicide notes with the aim of developing a practical field tool for investigators who find items that look like a suicidal expression at a scene. A look through a suicide database will turn up unique and startling suicides. Suicide contagion is the negative impact of a suicide on vulnerable or impulsive people, triggering attempts and completions. These can happen as a widespread cultural response, a local suicide cluster, or an echo cluster. There is little an investigator can do about a mass suicide or a suicidal mass murder. However, these suicidal acts do have precursors as well. Quite a few suicidal mass murderers wrote manifestos that contained their suicide message.
